Probe of Telkom chief financial officer batters shares

Jacques Schindehütte has been suspended pending a disciplinary hearing. Image: Telkom

Formerly Absa's chief financial officer‚ Schindehütte left the banking group to join Telkom in 2010. His departure leaves recently appointed chief executive Sipho Maseko and his newly constituted board without a key figure in driving its turnaround.

The head of the Financial Service Board's (FSB's) department of market abuse‚ Solly Keetse‚ told Bloomberg that a trade by Schindehütte had been referred to the FSB by the JSE. Keetse declined to comment further because the matter was confidential‚ and the JSE declined to comment either, Bloomberg reported.

Telkom said in its statement that following the completion of investigation‚ the board will decide on the matter. Though it is not clear what is behind the suspension‚ Schindehütte told TechCentral he was given an opportunity to resign but chose not to.

"I have had the opportunity to resign to avoid a disciplinary process‚ but this is not congruent with my value system‚" he said‚ adding that he was glad he would have a chance to give an account of his behaviour to the board.

Shares purchased

Schindehütte is among a group of board members who bought R8.5m worth of Telkom shares since the start of the year.

These purchases were a signal to investors that its leadership were confident they could turn the troubled former state-monopoly into a competitive telecommunications company. It was one of the reasons Telkom's share price rallied from a record low of R11.54 in May this year to a 12 month of high of R29.44 this month.

Schindehütte raised eyebrows when he bought R6m in shares days before Telkom released a positive trading update on 8 October‚ which resulted in the share closing 4.23% up to R27.62 on the day.

Schindehütte declined to tell TechCentral if the investigation was a result of his share purchases and only said the purchase was approved by the chief executive and the chairman (Jabu Mabuza).

In a statement‚ Maseko did not provide many details on what was behind the suspension‚ and only said that the board of directors is determined to act responsibly and to uphold all governance requirements.

Duty to investigate

"We have a duty to investigate and to test the validity of allegations which are brought to our attention through an appropriate process‚" Maseko said.

He added that all stakeholders would be informed of the outcome of the disciplinary hearing once the matter was concluded.

Telkom is no stranger to ructions around its chief financial officers. Schindehütte replaced Peter Nelson‚ who left under a cloud after he fell out with then chairman Jeff Molobela.

Deon Fredericks is the acting chief financial officer at Telkom.

Even so‚ Frost & Sullivan information and communication technologies head Ian Duvenage said as Schindehütte was not really involved in the operations side of the business‚ it was not likely to derail the turnaround. "On the image side it's not good but I don't think it will disrupt it too much‚" he said.